Houston Still Has a Problem

Houston Still Has a Problem

http://dberri.wordpress.com/2007/12/28/houston-still-has-a-problem/

The Houston Rockets Fail to Launch

This column made the following two arguments:

1. As I argued HERE and HERE, we should not have expected the Rockets to contend with the Best in the West in 2007-08. Still, Houston should not have become much worse.

2. The Rockets failure to launch is tied to a weakened supporting cast.

Although what I said a month ago is still basically true, I still want to return to the topic of this team’s troubles. Hopefully this column can shed additional light on what’s happening in Houston.

Reviewing the Decline

In terms of efficiency differential - offensive efficiency minus defensive efficiency - the 2006-07 edition of the Houston Rockets was the best in franchise history. Given that this was accomplished with Yao Ming missing 34 games, there was an expectation the Rockets would be even better in 2007-08. This optimism was also fueled by the trade of Juwan Howard for Mike James, the trade for Luis Scola, and the signing of Steve Francis. The combination of all these moves led John Hollinger to forecast that the Rockets would be the NBA’s best team in 2007-08.

After 28 games, though, it’s quite clear the Rockets are not the NBA’s best team. In fact, with a differential of 0.4, this team is not even counted among the NBA’s elite. So what happened?

To see why this team has declined we turn to Table One.

Table One: Projecting the Rockets after 28 games

Table One offers two projections of the Rockets in 2007-08. The first looks at how many wins we could expect if each player plays as well as he did last year. The second estimates how many wins each player will produce if he keeps playing as well as he has this season.

Had each of the Rockets maintained what we saw last year, this team would be on pace to win about 51 games. Such a mark would still be lagging behind the Spurs, Lakers, Suns, Jazz, and Mavericks in the West. But it clearly would have placed this team in the playoffs.

With a differential of 0.4, though, this team is only on pace to win 42 games. And this mark puts a playoff appearance in jeopardy.

Explaining the Decline

To see who is responsible for this decline, we turn to the performance of the individual players. In studying the Mavericks we saw that this team’s decline was primarily linked to the play of Dirk Nowitzki. When we looked at the Lakers, we saw this team’s improvement was primarily linked to the increased production from Andrew Bynum.

For the Rockets, the differences we see in team outcomes can’t be linked to just one player. Instead, we see declines in the production of Shane Battier, Yao Ming, Tracy McGrady, Mike James, Steve Francis, Dikembe Mutombo, and Luther Head.

With so many players offering less, the explanation of what’s plaguing this team becomes more difficult to pin down. My co-authors (a list that includes Martin Schmidt, Stacey Brook, Tony Krautmann, Mike Leeds, and Mike Mondello) and I have looked at various factors (in various papers) that we have found to have a statistical link to changes in player performance. I think many of these factors might be relevant to the Rockets this year. So here’s a list of issues - in no particular order — that might explain why Houston has such problems.

1. Coaching change

Before the season started the team switched head coaches. Rick Adelman and Jeff Van Gundy have both been found to positively impact player performance. But we have also found that just switching coaches causes per-minute performance of individuals to decline. Therefore, one possibility is that Houston’s players are simply having trouble adapting to a new coach.

2. Roster stability

In addition to changing coaches, this team has also made some significant roster changes. James, Scola, and Francis are all new faces. We have found that keeping a roster together will boost the per-minute productivity of an individual player. Likewise, new teammates can cause the productivity of individuals to decline.

3. Minutes Played

The more minutes a player plays, the better he performs on a per-minute basis. In other words, controlling for what a player has done in the past, increasing his minutes tends to lead to more productivity per-minute. Likewise, if you cut a player’s minutes, he tends to give you less on a per-minute basis.

Part of this might be coaches giving more minutes to players who have actually improved. But we think that part of this might reflect an old adage (at least, I think this is an old adage) you hear in football. “If you have two starting quarterbacks you really don’t have one.” In other words, if you try and split playing time between two players you tend to get less from both.

In the off-season the Rockets added guards James and Francis to a team that already had Rafer Alston, Luther Head, Bonzi Wells, and McGrady. With six players commanding minutes at the two guard positions, the team has to cut everyone’s minutes to get everyone some playing time. Alston, James, Francis, and Head are all playing far fewer minutes than they did last year. It’s perhaps not surprising that three of these players are offering less on a per-minute basis.

4. Age and Mutombo

One of the big reasons the Rockets were so good last year was the play of Dikembe Mutombo. When Ming went down with an injury it was expected that this team would collapse. Instead, as noted last year, Mutombo was able to produce wins in place of Ming.

This year Mutombo’s minutes have been cut. In addition, Mutombo is not offering much in the few minutes he is getting. Part of this might be the minutes issue just noted. Part of this might be age, which ultimately has to limit productivity.

Regardless of the reason, Mutombo is not offering much this year. And since he produced 9.0 wins last season, his absence has also harmed this team’s chances to contend.

5. McGrady and Battier

Both of these players are offering less. In my previous post on the Rockets I offered some thoughts on Battier. And I was planning another post on the Battier and Rudy Gay trade (this is not it).

McGrady, though, I have not talked about much in this forum. I will note that across McGrady’s first eight seasons he produced 107 wins, for an average of 13.4 Wins Produced per year. Across the past two seasons he only produced 15.6 wins. Part of this is because injuries have cut into his minutes. His per-minute performance, though, has also declined. Yes, he is still above average. But he’s not the dominant player we saw in Orlando.

One suspects that McGrady’s injuries have also taken a toll on his productivity. Perhaps a post detailing his decline might be a good idea in the future.

For now, let me end this post by noting that there are many possible explanations for why Houston is not playing well this year. Changing coaches, changing rosters, changing minutes, age, and injury can all be cited as possible reasons for why so many players are offering less this year.

Which one of these is most important? Hmmmm…I don’t know. But I look forward to seeing in the comments section which issue people think matters most. Hopefully the factor that gets the most votes is at least on my list.

- DJ

 

http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/7604718

Rockets, Jazz still defining themselves
by Randy Hill
Veteran columnist Randy Hill is a frequent contributor to FOXSports.com. Updated: December 26, 2007, 6:43 PM EST 4 comments RSS digg blog email print

Now that the NBA has gone screeching through the compulsory round of its regular season, we notice several teams have declared their long-term intentions.

A few teams have demonstrated a capacity to perform at a high level for several more months. Several others have offered incontrovertible evidence that they simply stink and can maintain this aroma through the draft-lottery chase.

Unfortunately, the list of courteous squads does not include the Utah Jazz or Houston Rockets. Instead of providing solid clues regarding their power or weakness, the Jazz and Rockets have been impressively confounding.
OK, the Rockets, at 13-15, would like us to believe they're legitimately bad. We're eager to embrace this self-effacing maneuver, but still recall how first-year coach Rick Adelman had Jeff Van Gundy's old defensive-oriented team looking pretty sweet at 6-1.

One season after reaching the Western Conference Finals, the Utah Jazz now seem to think they're the Phoenix Suns, checking in with 104.8 points per game, which is the league's second-highest scoring average. They also check in at ninth in the conference standings at 15-14.

To qualify for such mediocrity, Utah has had to lose nine of its last 11 games.

For a better understanding of why these things happen, let's get a closer whiff of the Rockets.

It should be noted that widespread preamble to this season offered Houston as a legitimate threat to win a playoff series or two. This sort of made sense because the Rockets suit up gifted wing scorer Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming, a 7-foot-6 guy with loads of skill. In T-Mac and Yao, the Rockets have two superstars without portfolio and by portfolio I'm referring to a history of playoff success.

But it was assumed that Van Gundy had been wise to assemble title-building role players such as undersized power forward Chuck Hayes and defensive-minded three-man Shane Battier to do the dirty work while T-Mac and Yao scored most of the points.

Point guard Rafer Alston, whose leadership potential may always be overshadowed by his work on the mighty And 1 Tour, was an official reason for concern, but Houston did add scoring point Mike James, resurrection candidate Stevie Francis and crafty four-man Luis Scola.

At 6-foot-1, Adelman, whose most recent coaching run occurred in Sacramento, looked golden. The Rockets killed that notion, however, by losing six in a row. Then they won three, lost two, won two and so on.

During this process, Scola and James have been busts. Hayes is overmatched as a starter. The third-leading scorer is the historically reliable Bonzi Wells. Alston continues to prove he's no match for the point guards lining up for the conference's top teams.

And a bum knee continues to be an albatross for McGrady, who — despite Houston's 0-3 mark without him — has become the lead candidate in a trade for which many Rocket fans now are chanting.

Well, let's see if we can use a few stats to make a case for jettisoning T-Mac. Always considered an eager marksman, the Rockets are a solid 8-5 when McGrady squeezes off at least 20 rounds from the field. They're 7-3 when he makes at least half of those shots and 6-9 when he doesn't.

Is he settling for jumpers when he should be attacking the rim? Sort of, but the Rockets are a cozy 6-5 when T-Mac takes at least eight free throws and a swell 8-3 when he has five or more assists.

Yao, who — unless you favor consistently dominant rebounding and defensive intimidation — ranks as the top center in the league (I'll take Dwight Howard, by the way) may not be getting the ball enough. Houston is 3-7 when he takes fewer than 15 shots per game which makes us wonder how in the hell the Adelman can allow Yao to take fewer than 15 shots in more than a third of their games. Our best excuse should be foul trouble.

Anyway, while trading T-Mac might not seem like a crazy idea, his tender knee (a recent MRI revealed no structural damage) makes him even more difficult to move for anything within hollering distance of market value.

It also has been posited that the Rockets are suffering from a transition in philosophy from the guard-'em-and-grind-it-out blueprint of Van Gundy to Adelman, who favored a brisk pace while coaching the Kings.

But ol' Rick is wise enough to realize his most valuable player is as large as an apartment building and — while Yao is quite agile for 7-foot-6 — not quite as fleet as Phoenix big man Amare Stoudemire.

So the Rockets currently are a Van Gundy-like 22nd in scoring and fifth in scoring defense, while coming in at fourth in field-goal percentage defense. The killer is Houston's own field-goal percentage, which has slipped to 26th-best in the NBA.

Pace also seems to be worth investigating in Utah, where the Jazz and coach Jerry Sloan have decided to take advantage of the open-court skill of point guard Deron Williams in a more rapidly advancing attack. But while they seem more efficient on offense, Utah has been shaky at crunch time and a bit more accommodating on defense.

Sloan, who encouraged selective fast-breaking under the guidance of John Stockton, still uses his four-high, half-court series, but believes inexperience can be credited with those late-game woes.

Subtraction by subtraction usually leads Jazz observers to revisit the absence of veteran two-guard Derek Fisher, whose return to L.A. also receives a measure of credit for the Lakers' rise.

Fisher's leadership on and off the court seems to be missed, although Williams certainly has the chops to lead. Utah's defense also may be suffering from the loss of Fisher, even though his successor — rangy Ronnie Brewer — was reputed to be a lock-down type when he was drafted out of Arkansas.

Another source of credit for Utah's dilemma is the free-fall in production from center Mehmet Okur, who has missed the last seven Jazz (2-5) games with a shoulder injury. Okur may be ready to return soon, but we're not sure if this is a blessing or a reason to duck — before retreating to the gurney, Okur's scoring had dipped to 12.2 from 17.6 a year ago, with similar downgrades in rebounding (5.0 from 7.2) and field-goal percentage (41 from 46).

If Okur can provide his usual deep-shooting threat (yeah, he does that) against the zones that have become a recent thorn in Sloan's side, Williams, Boozer and rising sophomore Paul Millsap should be enough to propel a Utah rally.

If not, they might want to find out if Shawn Marion still feels unappreciated in Phoenix.